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Transportation Privacy

Will Tesla Update Bring Remote Access To Car Cameras? (electrek.co) 59

Posted by EditorDavid from the I'll-be-seeing-you dept.
"Tesla's Sentry Mode is about to bring things to a whole new level by enabling Tesla owners to remotely see what their cars can see through Autopilot cameras," claims Electrek — citing a Twitter user named green "who has been revealing new Tesla features found in software updates."

"It's not certain when the live camera update would arrive, provided it's not scrapped," writes Engadget, adding "Elon Musk has been teasing a 'hot' holiday software release, but 'green' warned that it might not make that release..."

Some background from Electrek: For a while now, Tesla has been talking about better integrating its Tesla Sentry Mode feature into its mobile app. Sentry Mode is an integrated surveillance system inside Tesla's vehicles using the Autopilot cameras around the car and it has been changing the game when it comes to vandalizing parked cars. On several occasions, Sentry Mode videos went viral, and the vandals turned themselves in after online pressure. In other cases, video evidence helped police identify and find the vandals.

The feature was built on top of "TeslaCam," a previously released integrated dashcam system with similar capability as Sentry mode, but used when someone is inside the car. TeslaCam helped several Tesla owners with insurance claims by proving that they weren't at fault in some accidents captured by the integrated dashcam system. In order to activate the TeslaCam and Sentry Mode features, owners have to plug a storage device, thumb drive, or SSD inside their Tesla and activate the features in the settings...

Tesla owners can already have an extensive look at the status of their vehicles, including the doors open or close, same for windows, charge port, and more. Now they are going to be able to see around their vehicles even if no Sentry Mode event has been activated.
That's only if the update is actually released. How do Slashdot's readers feel about the possibility of this feature?

Does the world change when Tesla owners can remotely access their cars' cameras?
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Will Tesla Update Bring Remote Access To Car Cameras? More

Will Tesla Update Bring Remote Access To Car Cameras?

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  • Not limited to owners (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Sunday November 29, 2020 @11:51AM (#60775742)
    Unfortunately, it appears that Tesla just turned any of their cars into internet-enabled video surveillance device.

    • Re:Not limited to owners (Score:5, Informative)

      by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Sunday November 29, 2020 @12:04PM (#60775770)

      That's been true for a long time.

      For reasons I can't park my Y in the garage (maybe this next year!) so it has to live in the driveway. Vandalism isn't a big thing in my neighborhood but it does happen and so do burglaries.

      The Sentry mode picks up a lot of activity around the car. As long as the USB memory stick isn't interfered with there is plenty of evidence the police would look at if they did an investigation. Even if it was something that happened in the neighborhood and not with my property.

      If someone busted the window and knew to take the memory stick out then it wouldn't be worth anything. That is why more recent models than mine put the USB port in the locked glovebox rather than the center console. That would slow down the problem but not stop it, because they could crowbar the glovebox open in a minute.

      But if the images were being transmitted to the cloud real time that's a different story. Security cams like Ring do that pretty much standard for a long time. So this is a welcome development.

      • If you enable Mobile Access and then enable the share video clips with Tesla, when the alarm goes off, Tesla gets a copy of the clip just in case this should happen. They will help you and authorities by providing that last clip. Itâ(TM)s the only clip they tag with your VIN. I have dislodged the usb plug and buried the sentry mode thumb drive in my center armrest ever since they turned on the viewer earlier this year in my X
        • Fuck giving a megacorp copies of your videos ... once they have them, the cop scum can get it, whether they incriminate someone else OR you.
          • As I said, I would rather have the video of my own alarm going off if someone steals the USB stick or the car than not. It doesnâ(TM)t upload all videos, just if your alarm goes off, if youâ(TM)re in sentry mode, if you enable it.
          • You sound like someone who does not want videos of themselves breaking in cars. The only people thinking cops must be scum in this situation are the thieves on video as they try to steal something from the car.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I doubt they will store all the video in the cloud for you. They are paying for the bandwidth and the amount they charge owners for it isn't enough to cover that if they park all day away from home.

        Not really sure why you would want a live view... I suppose it's a cheap CCTV camera or something but the main point of those things is that they capture events so you don't have to be watching all the time.

        • A live view is the next step beyond the current push notification that your alarm is going off. You can open your app, look at the cameras, and decide if you need to do anything or if a cat jumped on your car from a nearby tree.

          Getting a notification on your phone that something might be happening with your car, but not having any more information is only useful as far as the accuracy of the alarm trigger.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Not really seeing the utility of it. Say you see someone damaging your car, what are you going to do? You are probably some distance from it and can't get there very quickly. You have video of them for insurance and the police, how will a live video make things any better?

            • Because of what I just said - say you're 20 floors up an elevator shaft and 5 blocks down a busy street from your car, and it tells you an alarm is going off. Are you just going to say "meh" and continue on, or would you like to know if you should head for the elevator, diall 911, etc.?

              With having a view of what happened to cause the alarm event on your phone, you just saved yourself a lot of wasted time and emotion if it was a false alarm. And if it's still in progress, you've got a shot at getting the p

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

                I'd rather not have a car alarm either. Too many false positives, to little benefit when it's real.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sinij ( 911942 )
        The issue of images being transmitted to the cloud is that a) potentially it is forever b) you don't get a say who gets to see them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Teun ( 17872 )
      Except for the already mentioned undesirables that will like to view your car's video there is this new opportunity to (ahead or after your car's video) show you a commercial for this great insurance that you really need.
      Think of all these new possibilities!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      And I'm going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: when this thing gets abused or hacked, owners and the media are going to be inexplicably shocked, as if that were somehow unthinkable.

  • Does the world change when Tesla owners can remotely access their cars' cameras?

    Absolutely! Before this, we usted to live in a world in which Tesla owners could not remotely access their cars' cameras. After this, we will live in a world in which Tesla owners will be able to remotely access their cars' cameras. Not a huge change, but It will be different.

  • Risks? (Score:2)

    by mattr ( 78516 )

    Does it increase attack surface?
    Every parked Tesla is now a potential surveillance camera that can be used to ID people and vehicles. Possibility of restrictions on parking location?
    Could the police get a subpoena for such video or even force Tesla to turn on surveillance mode remotely without your knowledge if your car is in a serendipitous location?

  • This is not mere gimmick. It an ICE killer (Score:4, Informative)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Sunday November 29, 2020 @11:57AM (#60775756) Journal
    ICEV carry lots of energy in a easily refilled form, i.e. gasoline. Batteries, though three times more efficient in terms of energy/mile it still is not enough to beat it in range. Its good enough for 100% of the usecases for 90% of the users, and may be 90% of the use cases for the remaining 10%. To unseat an established player with this advantage and the infrastructure to support it, and market saturation, you need very serious weapons.

    The first low hanging fruits were acceleration and power.

    Then handling. Batteries are heavy and so handling is tough, but unlike ICE with concentrated mass with lots of heavy moving parts, battery can be low slung, low CG and evenly distributed. With dual motors the weight disadvantage can be made up.

    Then you go for things the ICEV can not do no matter what. Ability to drive 6 high resolution cameras, maintain the main CPU alive, and maintain a network connection and do lots processing and uploading for hours with the engine off is impossible for the ICEV. The lead acid battery will be drained in an hour with such a use case. Hybrids may be able to get a fighting chance here.

    Regen braking, one pedal driving etc are not possible for pure ICEV. Hybrids can do this

    Running the airconditioner overnight in the camping mode, driving a 15 inch screen for several hours to provide entertainment etc are impossible for an ICEV, there simply is not enough electric energy on board. Sure there is gasoline, but you can't idle the engine for several hours in one spot without risking carbon monoxide poisoning. Even hybrids can not do this.

    Someone showing off a proud 140K BMW or Merc, and a lowly 50K Tesla owning friend stumps him (yes him, its mostly men who show off such cars) with "can your car do this?" it is pretty deflating. A few more instances, the value, the hype, the brag-value of these luxury cars are totally destroyed. These are the technology platforms underwriting much of the R&D of the legacy companies. Losing the profits and sales in these segments will inflict a lasting damage in the luxury car segments.

    While most others are obsessed with self driving and whether or not Tesla is doing well or bad on that front, it is sneaking in unnoticed things that can not be done by ICEV, no matter what.

    • Standby energy usage decreases driving efficiency (Score:5, Interesting)

      by nicolaiplum ( 169077 ) on Sunday November 29, 2020 @01:17PM (#60775928)

      All that energy has to come from somewhere. A Tesla in sentry mode uses far more power than parked without it. I've seen figures like 300W for sentry mode, and if that's true then that's 3.6kWh for a 12-hour standby - quite a range drain if you're parking up for any length of time, such as when parking your car when you're not using it (away for a few days by air, on holiday somewhere you aren't using the car, etc).

      Across a large EV fleet, that's a lot of power on a regional or national scale. That power has to come from somewhere - burning additional fossil fuel in most of the world today, or building more solar, wind, and hydro, and building the distribution networks. Electrical power isn't free and it emits carbon in most of the world today, so there are both non-carbon and carbon costs.

      If you're driving your Tesla mostly on short journeys, and then parking it up with the sentry mode on most of the time (even plugged in, or with easy charging available so the range drain doesn't matter), you're going to be seriously decreasing the energy efficiency of your vehicle. Using the above numbers, 12 hours of sentry mode is about 14 miles of range. A lot of people don't drive more than 28 miles a day, so that's a 50% increase in energy usage for the 12 hours of sentry usage compared to just driving their car around each day on their 28 mile trips. And yes, if they drive 56 miles, then it's a 25% energy increase for that driving - still poor.

      The consumer, of course, has to pay for this energy too.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jon3k ( 691256 )

        The consumer, of course, has to pay for this energy too.

        The consumer can choose to pay for the energy, or turn it off. 3.6kW out of an 80 kW battery pack isn't much, even if your numbers are accurate. Most people pay $0.10-0.15 per kWh [electricchoice.com]. It's $0.1026 where I live. So you're talking about $0.37 per day or about $11/month.

        Now each person can chose to turn this on or off, but for me, $11 a month is absolutely worth it in case of some incident. This is something that will never even be a choice on an ICE car.

        BUT! Sentry mode can be configured to turn off w

        • I mean, if you're willing to plug in your car at night, you can easily add this feature to an ICE car. Hell, 300 amp-hr of batteries take up a negligible amount of space if you need a battery buffer. You could (and people on the internet do) retrofit that much power into ICE cars (normally for camping.)

          So it's an easier option for an electric car sure, but not impossible for an ICE car. And if you don't want a feature it's literally worse less than nothing. Meanwhile, you never addressed GP's point that

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jon3k ( 691256 )

            I mean, if you're willing to plug in your car at night, you can easily add this feature to an ICE car. Hell, 300 amp-hr of batteries take up a negligible amount of space if you need a battery buffer. You could (and people on the internet do) retrofit that much power into ICE cars (normally for camping.)

            You could add an entire EV powertrain to an ICE car and then magically you can do this as well. We're obviously talking about factory, unmodified cars you can go buy.

            but you never respond to it.

            Because of the same conclusion you came to, it's not even worth discussing.

      • You can always turn it off, if you can't afford it.

        Tesla user interface is amazing. You can easily exclude trusted places from the sentry mode. Most people might not even use it. But it is one feature ICEV will struggle to match.This will be one of the many minor features that slowly nag the legacy car makers.

        The two biggest advantages the ICEV has is, cheaper sticker price and practically unlimited range. Price advantage is being slowly whittled away. Range issue is being addressed in various ways.

        At

        • Weight reduction does not give that much of a bang for the buck in efficiency in EV

          Why?

          • I have explained it a few times before. And I don't mind explaining it again. But not on a single, one word question. Please show you are willing to listen, I will take the time to explain,

            Simple google search my handle 140mandak262jamuna, keywords EV, ICEV, "bang for the buck", regen site:slashdot.org

            Find my posts on why weight is not as big a deal for EV when it comes to efficiency compared to ICEV. Ask what you find difficult to understand or what you want to dispute. If I am convinced you are persuada

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by psergiu ( 67614 )

              TL;DR version of 140mandak262jamuna "bang for the buck" explanation:
              Properly-implemented regen braking and hi-HP electric motors negate the downsides of a EV being heavier.

              • Thank you.

              • I guess properly implemented regen braking mitigates the cost of stop and go traffic. But it still costs more to move around giant slabs of metal than lighter ones. And EVs already have limited range.

                Like, obviously an electric forklift can lift a ton, but at the cost of speed and range.

    • That's only if you consider cameras or a 15in touch screen instead of buttons to be a selling point. I don't. If I don't care (or actively don't want my car connecting to the cell network), then it's literally nothing to me.

      Then again,I don't know anyone who asks "can your car do this"

      • Not sure if you know this, the touch screen is only for navigation, climate, music and preferences. You dont need to touch the screen at all. All the driving controls, cruise, turn indicators, go pedal, brakes, wipers all have dedicated controls, unobstrusive and close to the steering column. Add voice control, you never have to touch the screen while driving.

        Why people pay thousands of dollars for a Rolex watch which is less accurate than a 10$ timex? Its to show off that you can afford a rolex. Similar

        • That doesn't make me any happier, nor does it make it a selling point (to me). To me, it sounds like the conversation went like this: You: "And it has a touchscreen, yay!" Me: "I don't like touchscreens in my car" You: "But you use the touchscreen for fewer things than you thought, but still things you currently use buttons/knobs/other physical controls for" (Right now) Me: "Well, then it's still bad, but less so because there is less of it."

          I get I'm not every consumer, but a Tesla sounds horrible to

          • Buttons vs touchscreen is a personal preference. That is not the point I am trying to make.

            Tesla camping mode can let a couple camp in the car. Run A/c ventilation overnight. And watch a movie in the car while it is parked in some camp ground. This is a feature that is not easy to support in an ICEV. By itself it is not a big, must-have feature. You can use a laptop and some hot spot and jury-rig an entertainment system for camping, its not new and it has been done before. But it comes pre-installed in a p

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by psergiu ( 67614 )

              Tesla camping mode can let a couple camp in the car. Run A/c ventilation overnight. And watch a movie in the car while it is parked in some camp ground.

              The fact that you can easily fit a twin mattress in a X, Y and 3 and watch the sky trough the glass roof helps a lot with creating demand for this "camp mode".
              It was added in a free firmware update after the users requested-it (another thing all ICEVs hardly compete at)

  • I believe it would be great for owners to have that type of control to see and record events near and around their own property, however this presents a mobile spying opportunity for anyone who has access to Tesla's camera feed, your smart phone apps, or your local or expanded government. What happens when police subpoena your car video, or worse, have access to it because a crime was committed nearby? Look at what happened to everyone's ring cameras with Amazon and local police. Why couldn't the same proce
    • Legislation won't help. People are cowards and will vote for scum who choose "safety" and "the cheeeldren" over privacy rights. The only thing that will help is if a small country develops an EMP rocket and has the balls to use it...

  • Does the world change when Tesla owners can remotely access their cars' cameras?

    The summary was interesting and informative, up until the last sentence. Was that really necessary?

  • >"Does the world change when Tesla owners can remotely access their cars' cameras?"

    Not really. It is a cool feature, however.

    But who had access to the cameras and stored footage before, and who will after? And under what circumstances? And where else is footage stored? And how will we control that? And how will we even know? Welcome to Ring on your car. Oh, and welcome to more devices watching you, whether you opted into it or not.

    • >But who had access to the cameras and stored footage before, and who will after?

      Me and me.

      If the car is on wifi, it uploads video to a samba drive and I can watch it. This has been around for a while. Get the TeslaUSB software, install it on a Pi and plug the Pi into the Tesla.

    • But who had access to the cameras and stored footage before, and who will after? And under what circumstances? And where else is footage stored? And how will we control that? And how will we even know? Welcome to Ring on your car. Oh, and welcome to more devices watching you, whether you opted into it or not.

      Who will have access? Police, other law enforcement, spy agencies, lawyers suing you for any reason (evidence discovery).

      Under what circumstances? Police and government agencies whenever they feel like it. Lawyers any time someone wants to cook up a lawsuit.

      You will not know, except for the lawsuit, where you'll know you have to give it up anyway.

  • Is the only fair way for everyone to have access to the data? The power imbalance of some people having access and others not is where the risk lies. The thing is that if this is actually done then that really _does_ change the world.

  • "Does the world change when hackers and law enforcement can remotely access their cars' cameras without their knowledge?"

    I think you were asking the wrong question at the end there. I have zero reason to think this would not happen and enough examples where it already had happened to keep me awake at night. Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes?

  • But I do want the cloud provider to be of my choice. I don't want to stick to just one provider to avoid having to deal with privacy violations, which many US companies are willing to commit to make money.

    My welcome of the feature is not just to reveal truth about crimes committed around the vehicle, but also to keep records of the owner's interactions with law enforcement officers. Over the recent time, there has been countless encounters of bullying, harrassment, misconduct, illegal things happening whe

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